Related

At a live read of the Coen Brothers’ classic “The Big Lebowski,” director Jason Reitman says he’s returning in the fall for more LACMA readings

Jason Reitman's live readings of classic film scripts, which have become one of the hottest tickets in the Film Independent at LACMA program, will be back at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in the fall after Reitman takes a few months off to shoot a movie.

Reitman and Film Independent at LACMA Film Curator Elvis Mitchell announced the return of the popular series on Thursday night, when the director ended his string of six monthly events with a live read of "The Big Lebowski" featuring Seth Rogen in the role originated by Jeff Bridges.

"I've got this fucking day job that I have to do this summer," said Reitman with a laugh. "But as soon as I shoot my next film, I'll be back here."

Mitchell set the date of the return as October 25, after the conclusion of filming on Reitman's "Labor Day," a drama starring Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin and based on the Joyce Maynard novel. Reitman will shoot the film in Massachusetts this summer.

The events all sold out before the casts or even the screenplays themselves were announced. Reitman typically revealed the names via his Twitter account in the days leading up to each reading.

The live reads are only performed once, and are not recorded.

On Thursday, a line of ticket holders wrapped all the way around LACMA's Bing Theater long before the program began, while a standby line of hopefuls stretched off the LACMA grounds and down Wilshire Blvd.

For the first time, speakers were set up outside the theater so fans who couldn't get in could hear the reading.

Elliott's first line, delivered in his inimitable deep voice, drew such a large round of applause from the packed house that the 67-year-old actor cautioned the crowd to show some restraint, "or we'll be here all night."

Most of the audience, which included actor Gerard Butler, looked as if it would have been happy to hang around that long – and so did many of the performers, who applauded particularly zesty line readings from Alexander, Savage, Kroll, Wilson and others.

Reitman himself read the screenplay's stage directions, while a screen behind the actors displayed stills depicting the setting of each scene.

Like the previous readings, this one was essentially unrehearsed: Reitman said he simply meets with his casts for a few minutes before the readings and tells them to relax, have fun and not feel as if they need to imitate the original films.

At the end of the reading, while the audience gave Reitman and his cast a standing ovation, Elvis Mitchell referred to the director as the LACMA film series' "first artist-in-residence."

And while he won't be in residence for the next seven months, Reitman will be back. He just needs to take some time off to make money first.

(Photos of Jason Reitman and cast by Alexandra Wyman/Wireimage. Courtesy of Film Independent.)

You may like...

Steve Pond, awards editor at TheWrap, is also author of the L.A. Times bestseller The Big Show. He has been covering entertainment for more than two decades, and is the industry's most knowledgeable Academy Awards prognosticator.